Harold Teen

Introduction by Christina Petersen, PhD Candidate, Cinema and Media Studies

Based on the popular comic strip of Jazz Age adolescent life, Harold Teen scoops the 1950s teenpic by almost thirty years in presenting the "FIRST real lowdown" on the "super-modern generation" of 1920s youth. In this rarely-screened comic gem of the late silent era, farmboy Harold moves to the city to attend Covina High School and sets about becoming the big man on campus. He joins a fraternity, dates up the most popular girl in school, plays football, and convinces his classmates to abandon the "old-fashioned" tradition of putting on a school play in favor of a more up-to-date activity: a film burlesque on the contemporary western, South Seas potboiler, and flapper film.

Print courtesy Library of Congress.

(Mervyn LeRoy, 1928, 35mm, silent, B&W)